By Ben Levisohn

Baidu (BIDU) will report earnings on Feb. 4 and research reports are now trickling out predicting what will happen next week.

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Yesterday, Citigroup said that the company would have a tough transition to mobile and the investment bank lowered its price target for the stock. Now Macquarie appears to be agreeing on the impact of mobile, but is more optimistic about Baidu’s ability to cope with it.

In a report released today, Macquarie’s analysts said that they expect Baidu’s fourth quarter results to be “solid.” They do however, see mobile putting downward “pressure on Baidu’s revenues in the near term.” They write:

We consider the most important factor that may impact future revenue trends to be a faster-than-expected migration to mobile. While we strongly believe mobile search is highly monetizable and CPC on mobile should exceed its PC equivalent at some point, there maybe a temporary gap in monetization as Baidu tries to ramp up its mobile monetization platform and advertisers attempt to set up mobile-optimized landing pages.

The transition to mobile will also increase Baidu’s costs, the analysts say.

The most important part of Baidu’s story, in our view, is that the company is entering a potentially multi-year investment cycle and these investments may pressure Baidu’s margins somewhat. This ongoing margin pressure may hold Baidu shares in a trading range, despite the fact these investments are essential for Baidu’s longer-term success.

Still, they believe much of the risk has been priced into the stock at its current level and “present value to the longer-term investor.” Sounds like they expect a short-term selloff.

China’s T.H. Capital agrees that the negative expectations are already in the stock. Its analysts expect that the negatives will come from increasing competition from the likes of Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU), as well as the transition away from PCs to portable devices–but they also believe that Baidu is doing what it needs to meet the challenges.

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